Primers or binders are generally necessary when printing with liquid toners on some plastic materials, such as PET, polycarbonate or other substrates. Without binders, such toners do not adhere well to the surface to be printed upon. Thus, a binder material is needed that has a high affinity for both the toner and the plastic. In the past, solvent based primers were used. However, the solvents in use are not environmentally friendly and are therefore commercially problematic.
However, it is difficult to provide a primer that is environmentally friendly and nonetheless has a high affinity for both the toner and the plastic. In general, it has been found that binders which are applied dissolved in solvents, which evaporate and leave a cured binder work best for this task. Such binders are generally acrylates. However, such primer systems do cause air pollution when the solvents evaporate.
Primers which are UV cured and/or applied in an aqueous solution are advantageous since they are non-polluting. Acrylic based monomers are known for use as UV cured binders. It is known to use hyrolized PVA (applied as a aqueous solution) for a binder. However, such binders, while they adhere well to plastic substrates, do not adhere well to toners such as those based on Nucrel (coplymers of ethylene and an alpha, beta ethelenically susaturated acid of either acrylic or metacrylic acid by E. I. du Pont) and Surlyn (ionomer resins by E. I. du Pont) polymers. Such polymer based toners are sold, for example, by Indigo, N.V. of the Netherlands under the trade name ElectroInk. The ElectroInk brand toners comprise pigmented polymer particles, a carrier liquid such as a Isopar (solvent of branched-chain aliphatic hydrocarbons and mixtures thereof, e.g., isoparapffinic hydrocarbon fractions by EXXON) or Marcol (highly refined petroleum oils by EXXON).